Scorching the World

Today was the last of the ward conferences and it was our ex-Spanish ward. It was wonderful to see all our old friends again; there are so many wonderful people in that ward, and it was so heart-filling to sing in Spanish again. We do miss it, and Tom mentioned that to President Tucker, who said, "Hey, you can come back here any time!" It was very disappointing to me to see that the girls who I had playing organ have gone back to playing very poorly on the piano again. It's like I was never there. Oh well, not my place to say or do anything about it. But 5 minutes before the meeting started when nobody was playing prelude yet, I was sorely tempted to go up to the organ and start playing until they showed up! I had a headache all night but it went away as the day wore on, fortunately. We had talked about going to the Bay Area to see if Ryam to help Tom with his hip and to visit Marc and family and Tami and family, but Ryan wasn't available, so we were just going to s...

3/30/19                                       After I took a 2 nd pain pill, Tom and I went to bed earlier than normal and I slept great and woke up feeling wonderful. I still have a slight sore throat and I want to cough now and then, but other than that, I felt good. But, because Tom is a wonderful person, he didn’t insist that I go with him to work in the vineyard this morning. I felt good, but not that good!   And it was a good thing I stayed home because I worked Clean Queen almost the whole time he was gone and quite a while after he got back. There was a lot going around between Lilian, Anne, and I. I can’t imagine how many texts and emails Anne had when she woke up and caught up with us.   After Tom rested a bit from the vineyard, we worked in the yard the rest of the day. We replaced the planter pots we have in the front because they were all dying from the Fres...

3/29/19                             I had a rough night again but woke up feeling better, so I loaded up a few things to drop off at a thrift store and after went to Lowe's to buy some floor paint. Tom and I have discussed what to do about our custom stamped concrete floor. It must have been expensive to put in, but it is such a pain to try to keep clean and it never looks good to me. I don’t think I’m a perfectionist, but maybe in this I am being one. I don’t know. Anyway, we’ve discussed painting it because there are places on the floor where some wall paint has dripped that just won’t come off the floor. I’ve scraped with a knife, a wire brush, and scrub brushes, but it just doesn’t come off. So painting the floor a better color seems like it must be a good idea. I bought dark grey.  I painted the laundry room as a test. I figure if we...

3/28                                  I didn’t sleep well and woke up feeling not great, so I reluctantly skipped Laurel’s class again this week. I sure hated to miss it, but when it was time to leave, I was still in pajamas, horizontal on the couch.   But as the day wore on, I felt better and better, so when it warmed up and the sun was shining outside, it called me out. I didn’t do anything huge, but it sure felt good to be outside and physical.   When Tom got home, he noticed immediately what I had done, so that felt good.   After a few hours of enjoying the yardwork, I realized I was suddenly very, very tired and resumed my horizontal position on the couch. I’m not kicking this cough very fast, but it was wonderful to feel so good for a few hours!

3/27                                  I woke up feeling much better, for which I was very grateful. Today the Stake RS Presidency was in charge of feeding half of all the missionaries in the mission. There is a visiting authority here, Elder Bangeter, who was speaking to all the missionaries they could get together for a special conference. Apparently he is here for a combined stake conference in Tanya’s stake, so there are rumors flying around about possible boundary changes. Anyway, they needed fed.   We made them taco salad with pulled pork, a green-chile rice, corn, and all the toppings like lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro, etc. For dessert we gave them brownies with ice cream. About 10 of the missionaries didn’t get any meat, which was sad, but other than that, they were all fed, happy, and very grateful. We love the missionaries!   It took a good hour to clean up afterwards and...

3/26                                  Yesterday afternoon I noticed my voice was starting to feel gravely, and it was noticeably lower when we were having dinner. At FHE I could hardly talk and by bedtime I was a little miserable. I woke up without a voice at all and just wanted to rest all day. I knew I had a big day Wednesday, so I needed to get better today.   So I did. I watched a lot of TV or slept and felt best if I could get myself extremely warm. I wasn’t miserable, just a little old and I couldn’t talk. I had to go to the store to get my supplies for tomorrow, and I had to be up long enough to make a couple of batches of brownies, but other than that, I just took it easy. Tanya didn’t bring Caeli to gymnastics because she is sick, too, but Tanya still came over for a little while which was super nice.   Tom worked in Vacaville and didn’t get home until 9pm. Long day f...

3/25                                 Tom got to work from home today, so we got to be together. He had some work to do but was able to spend most of the day working in the yard. It was beautiful weather, so in the afternoon, when my phone was quiet, I joined him. It really felt good to be in the sun while it is still not-too-hot and get some physical exercise while making the yard look better. We buried the sprinkler lines in the front and back yards that he had laid down several weeks ago, now that he was able to make sure they weren’t leaking. I cleaned up around the blueberry bushes and we made sure the water lines were working for them. They just aren’t growing and we’re not sure why or what to do about it. It was nice working together out there. We had been invited by Sandy and Jim Thompson to dinner at 4, so we couldn’t work outside as long as we would have liked. We had several more project...

3/24/19                             I almost had to go to a stake meeting at 7am, but fortunately the other counselor agreed to go. So, the first meeting I needed to go to was Woodward Park ward at 9am. Sacrament meeting at the ward conferences is always good because that ward’s bishop speaks and they all give really good talks. The rest of it is all stuff we have heard now 6 times, so it’s a little hard to sit through both hours of the meetings. Then there was half hour break before Alluvial ward conference started. Again, the bishop gave a really good talk and the rest was almost word for word repeat. We just have one more ward conference next Sunday, for Echo ward, in Spanish. That should be fun! When the 2 meetings ended, I went to our building to see if I could get a temple recommend before the Bishop’s counselors went home, but there were too many people waiting; it was almost 2pm, and I was pretty hu...

3/23                                  I woke up with a slight headache, and was laying around lazily when I got a text from Tanya that said, “Are you excited? Do you want to pick me up on the way?” I responded, “Remind me what’s happening.” She had invited me in January to her stake's women’s conference. I didn't put it on my calendar, so I had forgotten completely about it. I got dressed as fast as I could, picked her up, and we were about 20 minutes early. We found seats towards the front. By the time it started, the whole chapel, overflow, and 3 or 4 rows behind that were full. I saw a lot of people from my stake, from Fresno West stake, and who I had served in the temple with that I love. The conference was amazing! They had decorated all the hallways, all foyers, all bathrooms, and the whole cultural hall in Pilgrim style, autumn colors, and with a gratitude theme. It looked like someon...

3/22                                 I’ve been working on getting my new computer set up how I want it ever since I got it. The latest problem I had was with where files were being stored. As I worked/slaved to get them where I wanted,  I started having a problem with all of the Microsoft programs. I researched what to do about it, and finally tried one last thing, that ended up removing all of Microsoft from the computer! So today I had to get Geek Squad on remote to fix it. That took a couple of hours and at the same time, I was handling a bunch of problems with Clean Queen, some from the team leader, some from Lilian, and some from clients.  At the same time, Tom made me some lunch and we watched a good movie on TMC.  They finally got it all taken care of, so no more computer issues. Tom got to stay home today, which was nice because he had some major fires he had to put out for ...

3/21                                 Tom worked away, but not as far this time. When he got home, he had Caeli with him! He had gone to Knudsen’s house to pick her up on the way home. They watched a little tv and then he took her to gymnastics. I left before they did to go to a Relief Society Birthday dinner for 5 th Ward. They had a nice dinner, a mixer game, some show and tell by whoever wanted to share, and a little history of the Relief Society that was made interesting instead of long, drawn out and dry. So it was a very nice dinner; very enjoyable. I love being in the stake presidency so we get to go to all the other ward’s Relief Society events.

3/20                                 Tom left early and was gone all day again. He loves driving and going places, so this is a job he enjoys doing. The problem is that he has a lot of hip pain lately, and the one thing that hurts the most is sitting for long periods of time. Sometimes he has to stop just to ease the pain for a few minutes. He hit rain and severe traffic here and there, but gratefully, he came home safely. I worked and cleaned a little and stuff like that, that isn't very exciting to report. I had a presidency meeting, but no errands before or after, and managed to get through the whole time gone without anything urgent from Clean Queen or Tom. I had hoped we could go to the ward Pinewood derby in the evening but Tom didn’t get home in time. They were letting adults bring cars, too, so it sounded like it would be a lot of fun. Oh well, maybe next year. Mostly I’m glad whenever To...

3/19/19                            Tom left about 8am and headed north. He was hoping to stop in and see Tami and Phil for a while before heading to the parks he needed to get to, but when he got almost to Livermore, traffic stopped. There was a big rig that caught on fire at 3 am and still had all the traffic blocked 7 hours later! They didn’t get all lanes open until evening. He tried taking side streets, but so did most other people so that traffic was hardly moving too. Needless to say, he never made it to Tami’s house. After he finished his work, he had time to kill before a park meeting, he had to go to at 7pm, so he went up to the McGill’s lake house and took a little nap. After the meeting, he still had the long drive home and didn’t make it until about 10:30pm It was a painful long day for him! I did quite a bit of Clean Queen again. In the afternoon Tanya asked me to pick up Caeli and bring her...

3/18                                  Our stake president said that Family Home Evening has been changed to Home Evening. I didn’t see that online or anywhere, but I trust that he knows what he is talking about.                          Tom got to stay home today and enjoyed the nice weather getting some things done outside. He loves having a big yard! I did a whole lot of Clean Queen today. I got more cleaning request forms and texts today than I’ve had in the past few weeks combined. It’s like suddenly people are coming out of hibernation in Utah. I also helped Tom some and we ran some errands, but there isn’t much more to report about today. Tanya agreed to let us come over for Home Evening and take our banana split supplies to share with them. When we got there, Tanya a...

3/17/19                            We are in the month where the stake does a ward conference for every ward. Since 2 wards meet in each building (except the Spanish ward) they can do 2 ward conferences on each Sunday and it only takes a total of 4 weeks. All people with Stake Callings visit all ward conferences, and last week was the first time that we were in church for 2 hours for each ward, with half hour in-between. This week it was our ward’s turn. So I needed to go to the other ward in our building at 9am, and convinced Tom to go with me, just so we could be together all day. It was a good conference. My favorite thing about each conference is each Bishop’s talk. They are completely different and particularly suited for their ward members.   In that ward (Van Ness Ward), the Bishop told the story of the Little Red Hen who asked for help with every part of making bread, from planting the seeds, g...

3/16                                  Tom convinced the Knudsen boys to come over and help him work on sprinklers. He just needed a couple more hands, and hated to take me away from scrubbing the floors. At one point, before the boys came over, he asked me to help and promised to help me scrub floors later if I did, but by the time he came in from working on the yard, he was so exhausted all he could do was lie down. He was hurting all over.   Anyway, Todd came over with the boys; Tanya and Caeli went to visit Tami for the day. Cannon helped Tom outside and Kaden volunteered to help me scrub floors inside. He was a pretty good little helper. He scrubbed and scrubbed. We did the whole (mostly) kitchen and then I rewarded him by letting him watch Mythbusters on TV. After we rested a quite a while, I scrubbed the hall floor, but not on my hands and knees. I had to get it done, even if it wasn...

3/15/19                             Tom got to work from home today which was nice. He was on the computer most of the day and needed my help for a lot of things most of that time. In between helping him and resting, I scrubbed the floor. I found that Resolve carpet cleaner is what works best, but it still requires being on my hands and knees with a scrub brush. I googled how to clean a stamped concrete floor and it said you are supposed to reseal it about every 3 years. I wonder how long it’s been since ours was sealed, because we've been here about 3 years.  I’d like to seal it so tight no dirt can get in the crevices! So I rested and watched some tv, then returned to the floor over and over until my arm and shoulder felt like they would fall off. After a week, I’m still not halfway done. That’s a little discouraging but the clean part looks so much better, there's no way I can NOT finish.  ...

3/14                                  I almost didn’t make it to Laurel Lawrence’s class today because I kept having things to do, but at the last minute, everything calmed down and I got there on time. I love her class and it’s so nice when I can sit through the class without any emergencies from Clean Queen or Tom. I picked up what I would need for my salad tonight, then went home. I spent a lot of time scrubbing the floor some more. It takes a long time, and after a couple of hours each day this week, I’ve only cleaned a small section. I really need to find a faster way to get the same results! Tom made it home by 5pm, so for the first time this week, we could have spent the evening together, but I had to leave right after that to go to our Stake Relief Society round table that we do for the all the ward relief society presidents. Only 2 presidents showed up, but we had a great discussion...

3/13                           Tom was gone all day again; from 7am until 7:30 pm. Such long days! I worked on Clean Queen a little while, made a baby gift for someone in our ward who is having a baby shower next week, and I scrubbed floors.  Not the most exciting day, but where I’ve cleaned, it looks so much better, how can I quit? So far I’ve done the entry. I still have the hall, family room, laundry room, and kitchen. I think it will be like the Golden Gate Bridge, that as soon as I finish, I’ll need to start over. Two hours at a time is about all I can handle, but slow progress is still progress, right.  Here is the difference. Bear in mind, it didn’t look dirty before I started! But the comparison is so bad, I'm totally embarrassed!

3 /12                                I had my first book club meeting tonight, so I was pressed to finish the book today. I can’t believe I didn’t ever skip any pages or chapters. It was a good read and I enjoyed all of it.   Every word. I also worked on shampooing the carpet in my bedroom, which only took one time with soap and one rinse to look much better. So I spent less time on my whole bedroom than I did on the office yesterday, which is half as large. And I scrubbed another area of the family room floor. I tried using a scrubbing broom, but it didn’t work as well as just on my hands and knees with a little scrub brush. What a pain. And I spent quite a while on Clean Queen because I had to switch the team leader in all upcoming appointments. That will actually take several days because I have to switch it on every client. Apparently, there is no way to do a mass change from one team le...

3/11/19                             I’ve been planning to clean the carpets for a long time, but hoped I could wait until it was a little warmer. But they were just too dirty to wait any longer. I had hardly any Clean Queen work today, which was a little worrisome. We need more work! So I got busy cleaning the carpet in the office. What I always do is shampoo, then go over the same area with clear water as a rinse, taking out as much water as I can. If the rinse water comes out dirty, I shampoo it again, then do another rinse. If the water is still dirty, I shampoo it again and scrub any spots that haven’t come out. I did this 5 times on the office carpet and finally the rinse water wasn’t so dirty. I took as much water out as I could and turned on the ceiling fan to help it dry. So embarrassing that it was so dirty! Tomorrow is book club. I’m so happy to be in a ward that has book club that I’m determined...

3/10     Today as part of my calling in Stake Relief Society, I was visiting two ward conferences, so I couldn’t go to my ward AGAIN. It’s just a little funny to me that we’ve been in the ward about 6 weeks and I’ve only been there once! Anyway, I left way earlier than Tom to go to the first ward. . With the old schedule, for ward conference, we would go to the ward’s Sacrament Meeting, then the combined session for adults where the Stake Presidency does a special presentation, then they would have a linger-longer. Then we would repeat that for the next ward that meets in that building. So 6 hours total each Sunday for 3 weeks. Now we go to Sacrament Meeting, then the special presentation in Sunday School, then a half hour break, then repeat for the next ward. No linger-longer, and no food for 5 hours. It was fine, but when it was time for Sunday School in the 2 nd ward for the day, the others in my RS Presidency decided to duck out and skip the last hour. I ...

3/9      Yesterday Tanya invited us to join them at the temple today to do sealings, so we happily joined them. I don’t think there is anything more wonderful than being in the temple with your very own children! Such happiness. The ordinances are so beautiful, and more beautiful now than before. I wouldn’t have thought that possible. Words just don’t work to express the beauty, peace, and joy that one feels in the temple. We stopped on the way home for some supplies for tomorrow’s “Sunday Sundae”, then went home. I cleaned house and Tom worked on the yard. It is beginning continuing to feel like he will NEVER get all the sprinklers set up so we don’t have to worry about watering our yard by hand. He has seriously been working on them ever since we moved in three years ago. There is so much that still needs done. We have places in both front and back yards where he has dug trenches but hasn’t finished laying the pipes. It just takes time that he never has. ...

3/8       We had a goal to go to the temple today but first needed to see if I could get all my Clean Queen appointments settled and set, and if Tom could make sure there weren’t any emergencies with his work. That happened early, so we made it to the 9:30 session. The session was over-packed, as usual. With both the Sacramento and Oakland temples closed for remodeling, our little temple is being used to more than capacity in almost every session and other ordinances. We were glad we had made reservations. It was wonderful, as usual, and always nice to see people we love there. But when we got back to the car, I found that there had been some extreme emergencies and both Lilian and Natalia had been trying to text and call me. In my excitement to get to the temple, I had forgotten to give Natalia the whole schedule after it changed this morning, so she didn’t know where she was supposed to go. It was a disaster! After I got home and straightened things out, it all...

Mar 7     Tom left around 7 for the Bay Area since he didn’t make it yesterday. I got ready to go to Laurel Lawrence's class and without hardly any interruptions I managed to go to the class all through the class without ANY texts. I stopped at Target for a few things on the way home, and still didn’t get any texts. Amazing. But also a little worrisome that Clean Queen was so quiet! At home I just kind of took it easy today and enjoyed a calm day. Tom got home about 4.  About Sara, he said he was supposed to pick her up at the hospital in Fremont but called before going there and found out she had already left. There was no way to reach her, so he was able to avoid a wasted trip to the hospital. Who knows where she went or what she is thinking. When he got home, he said he got a text from Tanya saying Cannon had a choir concert tonight, and Caeli also needed a ride to gymnastics, so we had to leave right away. He took me and dropped me off wher...

3/6        When Tom opened the living room curtains this morning, he said, “Holy Cow!” I said “What?” and he said, “Look out the window!” We have a huge eucalyptus tree in the front yard that leans. It had a huge branch that extended out over the street. We had the whole tree trimmed way back last summer because we were afraid it might break off and do some serious damage to our neighbors across the street. Last night that branch broke off. Our neighbor, Art, heard it and went out to see, but it was too dark to tell what happened. This morning he went out and saw that it missed his truck by a few inches.   He had to move some parts of the branch that were blocking the road so he could go to work.  I guess in the picture it's kind of hard to tell how much of the tree is in the street. It was a huge branch!   The only damage it did was to our recycling bin.    We’re so glad nobody and nothing was hurt. That tree is jus...

3/5 Tuesday       Today was pretty peaceful. I spent all morning/afternoon moving files from the old computer to the new one. I finally got everything transferred so now I’m in business on the new computer. Tom got to stay home and hoped to do yardwork, but every time he headed outside, it was either already raining or just started back up again. There is so much to do and the rain is helping it be more and more green, but with weeds, not grass. It did stop raining long enough for him to mow the lawn and get rid of a bunch of palm leaves that had fallen all around the back yard. The lawn weeds had grown so high they were hiding a couple of chairs that were out there, and a wooden tree that I had made had blown over. He cleaned up all of that and it looks so much better. In the evening Tanya came over while Caeli was at gymnastics. I’m sure glad gymnastics is near our house! She settled in on the couch to watch tv, which we usually do, but I invited her int...

March 4             Tom got to stay home today, so that was really fun! We didn’t need to go anywhere for FHE, and Tom had volunteered to take Caeli to see How to Slay your Dragon. I wasn’t interested in that at all. It turned out well because I managed to get an appointment with the Geek Squad to look at my computer at 3:20 pm. In the morning, I used Tom’s computer enough to research what was going on with my computer, that would make it not recognize any internet. Everything I found sounded pretty disappointing. Little by little I decided it probably would be best to replace my computer. Tom wanted to go with me to find a new one. First we tried Costco, but I wanted a big one, and they didn’t have any big ones, so we went to Best Buy and looked at all the different ones and finally settled on a really cool one, bought it and took it home. I spent all morning and afternoon transferring files and installing programs. I got a...

3/3        Tom and I had invited people (the Durrants from our ward, and Knudsens) over tonight for banana splits, so I needed to be back home in time for that. So Tanya and I went to Trina’s ward for Sacrament meeting, but skipped out before Sunday School. Tanya had a book she was reading over the weekend, so I read to her to keep her entertained while driving. I read almost all the way home, just taking breaks now and then to rest my voice, and then I’d get her to talk a little. So it was a nice trip. Tanya drove fast enough that we got home in time for me to join the last few minutes of choir practice. Then Tom and I, glad to finally be together, came home, took a little nap and then got ready for company. My internet quit working on my computer for the rest of the day, so that was super frustrating. But when the Durrant’s and Knudsens came over, we had a good time together. It was fun.